


On A Dime

by Secretbadass



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Caring Sherlock Holmes, Doctor John, Feelings Realization, Friends to Lovers, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-17
Packaged: 2019-09-21 12:25:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Secretbadass/pseuds/Secretbadass
Summary: An unexpected emergency jolts John into realizing what Sherlock means to him.





	On A Dime

About a hundred paces in the direction of 221B from the Baker Street tube station entrance, there was an American coin embedded in the pavement. A dime, to be exact. How it had come to be there and why it had never been removed or paved over was unclear. Yet there it sat, winking up from its dip in the pavement, too deep to be dug out but not so deep as to obscure its exotic identity. John made a point of pausing every time he passed the spot, just to check that it was still there and wonder, as ever, what its story was.

On this particular afternoon, John emerged from the station and had nearly reached the coin when he remembered that he had promised Sherlock, on his way out the door to the surgery that morning, that he would swing by the shops on his way home. They were nearly out of several staples, including Rosie’s cereal and Sherlock’s favourite biscuits, and that would never do. Oh, and of course they needed milk. John reversed course, apologizing as he nearly bumped into a young mother with a baby in a push chair, and headed back toward the shops.

He had barely gone a dozen paces when he was stopped in his tracks by screeching tyres and the crunch of crumpling metal from behind him. He whipped around to find that a lorry had jumped the kerb and come to a stop on the pavement, its front end wrapped around a post. Somewhere on the other side of the lorry, a baby was screaming. John jolted into action. “You!” he shouted at a shell-shocked bystander as he bolted toward the wreck. “Call an ambulance, now!” The woman gulped and nodded, dialling her mobile with a trembling hand.

John rounded the front of the lorry to find a woman lying prone on the pavement. He crouched beside her, feeling her neck for a pulse. Nothing. Her head was turned away from him and he moved around until he could see her face. His shoulders sagged. She had been pretty once, before the impact that caved in the side of her skull. He covered her face with the scarf she had been wearing.

The woman’s baby was still screaming from the push chair, which was lying on its side on the pavement a couple of metres away; a small crowd was gathering around the wailing infant. “Don’t touch the push chair!” John shouted. “Let me through, please.” He moved to the chair and crouched down. The baby was still securely fastened into the seat, apparently unharmed, arms and legs waving as she howled her outrage. The crying and movement were excellent signs, and the baby carrier’s handle was in the correct position, serving as a roll bar to protect her from the impact. John carefully righted the push chair, placing a gentle hand on the infant’s belly and shushing her out of habit. He lifted the blanket that partly covered her, then carefully unfastened the carrier's chest straps and raised her tiny shirt so he could see her abdomen. There was no outward sign of injury, and the abdomen was soft. His gentle palpation didn’t seem to produce any discomfort, and she already seemed to be calming. Frightened rather than hurt, most likely. Just to be sure, he used the torch on his mobile to check her pupils. Equal and reactive. All good. He gently refastened the carrier straps.

“You stay here with the baby,” John ordered a male bystander. “Do not take her out of the push chair. She may have internal injuries we can’t see, so right now that baby carrier is the safest place for her.” By now the sound of sirens could be heard, coming closer. “The ambulance is on its way. You stay with her and do not move from this spot. Understood?”

“Y-yes, sir,” the man answered, responding instinctively to John’s air of command.

That left the lorry driver.

John moved around to the driver’s side of the vehicle, where a cluster of people had gathered. Someone had opened the driver's door, and John could see the man was slumped in his seat.

“Let me through, please,” John said, pushing his way to the man’s side. “Sir? Sir, can you hear me?”

The driver appeared to be in his late fifties. He was still fastened into his seat, head lolling to the side. His eyes opened in response to John’s question and he turned his head to look at him.

“Can you tell me your name?” asked John.

“Eric...Lyle. Eric Lyle.”

“Okay, Eric. Can you tell me what happened?”

“I felt dizzy, I-I couldn’t see right, and then everything went black—Oh, God, did I hit anyone?” He tried to straighten up to look around, but John placed a restraining hand on his chest.

“Easy,” said John. “I need you to keep still. Help is on the way. Can you tell me if anything hurts?”

The man groaned. “My chest. Belly. That’s all.”

“Okay, Eric, I’m going to check you for injuries now.” John began his examination. “Can you tell me the date?”

“I never know the date. No, wait...it’s the 17th, innit? S'my birthday tomorrow.”

 _Not going to be a happy birthday_ , thought John. _Not this year. Maybe not ever again._ “And do you know where you are?”

“Baker Street. Had a delivery to make, next street over. Won’t get there now, will it?” He grunted as John prodded a sensitive spot.

“Does your neck hurt at all?”

“No.”

“Turn towards me?”

Eric followed instructions and John checked the pulse at his neck, then his pupillary reflexes, and palpated the rest of his chest and belly. There was some tenderness along the path of the seatbelt, but no apparent bruising or severe injury. Eric’s pulse was rapid and a bit weak; his face was bathed in sweat.

“Do you have any heart problems, Eric?”

“No.”

The ambulance pulled up and two paramedics jumped out, kits in hand. “Step back please, sir,” said one of them to John.

“Of course,” said John, taking a few steps backward as the first paramedic took his place at Eric’s side. He turned to the second man. “Doctor John Watson. The driver’s GCS is 15, alert and orientated, pupils equal and reactive. Says he blacked out before the crash. Complaining of chest and abdominal pain—possible seatbelt compression, but he’s also tachycardic and diaphoretic. No history of heart disease, but given the blackout and his other symptoms, I can’t rule out some sort of cardiac episode.” He lowered his voice. “There’s another victim, female. DOA. Massive cranial trauma, visible brain matter.” He nodded toward the driver. “He doesn’t know. The female victim has a baby, six to eight months old, in the push chair over there. Apparently unharmed, but I haven’t had a chance to make a full examination.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the paramedic. “We’ll take it from here.”

John nodded, stepping away. By this time the police had arrived, wanting a statement. He gave it, then provided his contact information and was told he was free to go.

By this time the ambulance carrying Eric had raced away and the baby had been taken into the care of the police until her remaining family could be contacted. She was too young to be aware of her mother’s body being zipped into a black bag and loaded into the back of a coroner’s van.

A tow truck arrived and began reversing into position to collect the damaged lorry, and John abruptly found himself at loose ends. He looked around, getting his bearings. What had he been doing before the crash? Oh, right. The shops. He looked down, and there was the dime. The dime he had nearly reached when he had remembered his errand and turned back. The dime that marked the spot where he would have been standing had that recollection not intervened. The spot where that young mother had died. The spot where _he_ would have died had he not reversed course.

The realization struck him full force, then. He would have died there, on the pavement of Baker Street, in broad daylight on a sunny Thursday afternoon, for no other reason than that he was standing in the wrong place when a lorry driver had a heart attack and lost control of his vehicle. Not while chasing a criminal down a dark alley, not while protecting Sherlock or Rosie, not while doing something real and worthwhile and _important_ , but just...suddenly, randomly, pointlessly. Just like that, no more John Watson, M.D., formerly of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers. No more father for Rosie. No more blogger, flatmate, protector, _friend_ for Sherlock. Just one more loser in the colossal crapshoot of life.

All at once, he had to get home, _now_. He had to see them, see his daughter, his—he had to see Sherlock. He turned and bolted in the direction of 221B.

Sherlock was pacing the living room, swaying from side to side, a drowsy Rosie against his chest. She was very nearly asleep when he heard the street door open and then slam shut, followed by the pounding of John's footsteps on the stairs. Something must be wrong. John never took the stairs at a full-on sprint unless it was an emergency. He turned toward the living room door, a quizzical look on his face.

John cleared the last few steps up to the flat, never breaking stride as he made a beeline for Sherlock and Rosie. At the last second he slowed just enough to avoid jarring the baby and took them both into his arms. He was still breathing hard.

“John?” asked Sherlock, keeping his voice low for Rosie’s sake. “What’s happened?” John just shook his head and held on.

Rosie stirred against Sherlock’s chest, opened her eyes, and smiled up at John. “Dada,” she said drowsily before nuzzling Sherlock’s chest with one cheek and dropping softly into sleep. John bent down and kissed her head, wrapping his arms around the two of them again. He felt Sherlock’s free hand come up to caress his back.

“John?” Sherlock whispered.

John raised his face to Sherlock’s. “I...” God, where to start? He took a deep breath and felt it all come whooshing back out in a great sigh. He smiled. “You’re going to think I’m crazy,” he murmured.

“Don’t be ridiculous, John. That’s impossible. You live with me, willingly. I _know_ you’re crazy.”

John giggled despite himself, then sobered. “I nearly died, Sherlock. Some lorry driver had a heart attack and lost control and hit a woman and she _died_ , and I didn’t. I didn’t, because ten seconds earlier I remembered that we needed milk and biscuits and turned back the way I’d just come. I _lived_ , Sherlock, because we needed sodding _milk and biscuits!”_ He laughed again at the absurdity of it all, at the arbitrary way that life and death were meted out.

Sherlock, not certain what to make of this, simply hugged him back, an awkward undertaking with Rosie sandwiched between them.

“And as soon as it was all done,” John continued, his voice muffled against the detective’s shoulder, “after the police and the ambulance left, I realized what could have happened, that I would never have seen you or Rosie again, and I needed to be home _now_. I just—” The adrenaline crash chose that moment to strike, and all at once he was shaking and shuddering in Sherlock’s arms. The detective muttered a quiet curse, turning away for a moment to lay Rosie gently down on the sofa. Mercifully, she didn’t wake.

He stepped back over to John and gathered his blogger up, steadying him against the shaking. John held onto him until the tempest passed. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“Ssshh,” said Sherlock. “Never apologize for leaning on me, John. It’s what I’m here for.”

John stilled and stepped back but kept a hand on Sherlock’s waist as he looked up into his face. “It is, isn't it? You’ve always been there for me. Always, from the very start. Even when you died, even when I married someone else, even when I wanted nothing to do with you. Even when I didn't deserve it—and let's face facts, that was most of the time—you were always there for me.”

Sherlock blinked. John was gazing up at him with such a soft smile, such warmth and light and _fondness_ in his eyes. What was happening here? “John, I—”

“Sherlock...I’m going to make a deduction. And if I’m right, you’re going to be honest and tell me, okay?”

“John, so help me, if this is about The Woman again—”

"What? Christ, no. It—I was an idiot—that was just—forget about her!"

"Gladly. What's your deduction, then?"

“You love me...don’t you?”

Sherlock’s expression shuttered.

“No,” John said, putting a hand up to the detective’s shoulder. One thumb began stroking the soft skin just above the taller man's shirt collar, making Sherlock shiver despite himself. “No, please don’t shut down. Don’t shut me out. It’s okay. It’s okay, because I love you, too, don’t you see?” He smiled up into Sherlock’s face. “ _I love you, too_.”

What John witnessed next could only be described as the Sherlockian equivalent of the Windows blue screen of death: complete hard drive shutdown and reboot. Sherlock blinked rapidly for a few seconds, then didn’t. For a very long time. John was reminded of the day he’d asked Sherlock to be his best man, except this time the CPU was taking much longer to come back online. Was Sherlock’s chest even moving?

“Sherlock?” John asked, gripping the detective's upper arms and giving him a small shake as the one-minute mark ticked by. “Sherlock, you have to breathe now. Remember to breathe!”

Sherlock abruptly snapped out of it, sucking in a breath like a diver surfacing from the depths. He blinked some moisture back into his stinging eyes.

“There you are,” said John, smiling. “Did I short out your hard drive?”

“I had to do some...reformatting,” the younger man answered.

“All done, then?”

“Er...yes. All done.”

“So did I get it right?”

“What?”

“My deduction. Was I right?”

“Oh.” Sherlock gave him a bashful look. “Well...yes, as a matter of fact.”

“Yeah?” John asked with a grin that put the sun to shame.

Sherlock smiled back shyly, gaze faltering and cheeks pinking up. “Yeah.”

“You’re adorable, you know that?” John asked. “It makes me want to snog you senseless.”

“Oh. Oh!” Sherlock said as John stepped up to him, reaching up to cup Sherlock’s jaw with one hand, and brought their mouths together. The kiss was soft and slow and almost chaste—both of them acutely aware of the little girl lying asleep just steps away—yet when it was done they both breathed as though they’d been running.

“Best deduction I’ve ever made,” John murmured.

“Well, that’s really not saying much, given the paltry—”

“Oh, shut _up_ , you berk. I got it right!”

Sherlock hummed, one hand wrapped around John’s wrist where it rested on his shoulder. “Perfectly sound analysis, I suppose,” he breathed, eyes twinkling. “Although I do hope you’ll go deeper.”

John was startled into a laugh, then, one full of such pure love and elation that Sherlock immediately enshrined the sound in the warmest, sunniest room of his mind palace—the room that held all his best memories of John. “You cheeky bugger!”

Sherlock grinned, then sobered. “John, I—”

“Yeah, love?”

The detective’s breath hitched at the endearment. “I do, too, you know,” he said, voice suddenly unsteady. “Love you. I love you.”

Hours later, after he and John had spent the remainder of Rosie’s nap time snogging each other stupid, and after they’d had a quiet dinner and put Rosie to bed and talked a bit and snogged some more, and after they’d had (awkward, fumbling, _fantastic_ ) sex together for the first (and second) time, Sherlock left John snoring gently in his bed and slipped out of the bedroom, mobile in hand.

Ten minutes later, Mycroft sent the CCTV footage through to his laptop. He cued it up and watched it all the way through to the end, then reloaded it and watched it through a second time. Someone who didn’t know him well would have thought him entirely unmoved—posture ramrod straight, fingers steepled beneath his nose, gaze impassive. Only a keen observer would have seen how the elegant hands shook, how his breath hitched as he closed the laptop and sat for a time with a hand over his mouth, contemplating what might have happened this day. At length he put the computer aside and went back to bed, twining himself about his lover and marvelling at being able to do this now. There was so much ahead of them, so much to learn about being together like this, about who they were together, and he didn’t want to waste a single moment of it.

He held John close until morning.


End file.
